Author OMWA OMBARA is a prolific African Voice in Diaspora. Her resilience hardened verses send a rebellious jab to the cantankerous, unrepentant COVID 19 pandemic. She sings a bitter hymn against chair warmers and lazy hands -on- keyboard scribes, who thrive on abusing and harvesting the sweat of resilient writers and voices from digital thicket, without any ounce of their own effort. Her rebuking lines in her hefty protest poem IN HONOR OF PRESS FREEDOM DAY 2020, a Satire glow with hard truth and snorts in the remorseless faces of double-chinned charlatans and double bellied pseudo media bosses burying the pseudo revolutionary imbecility in borrowed political berets. The Protest Poet is not holding her horses, back she throws sharp jibe into the belly of COVID 19 and her irritating twin imbeciles daughter Quarantine and Lockdown.
IN HONOR OF PRESS FREEDOM DAY 2020
(Satire)
I am an armchair journalist scouting Zuckerberg's ever busy streets for free information
Feeding off the sweat of frontline journalists and eyewitnesses
Taking credit for those who risk their lives everyday in the COVID-19 war to bring the news home.
I am an armchair journalist, I work in pyjamas and bathroom slippers
I sip endless cups of coffee and hug my whiskey bottles against my protruding potbelly.
I am Media
Proclaiming freedom of speech to justify my waywardness
Scrounging for leftover news to analyze, interpret, criticize.
I steal pictures faster than they hit facebook
Downloading, cropping, filtering.
I switch my remote control 24/7 to keep up with the latest news channels
Give me forty winks and I'll do the trick, I sleep with the pen and notebook on my lap for tips and balance.
I am the yellow journalist
Conveniently starved from the appetite of quoting sources
Too entitled to attribute websites and pages I have stolen from.
I am an armchair journalist
I celebrate press freedom today
Can't you see my armchair is rugged from my tired butt?
I am the press,
I hold the power of the pen.
I 'kill'people with rumors and post their photos before they truly die.
I do not use the share button
'Copy paste' and 'stolen'is my Press Plagiarism Card
I am an armchair journalist begging politicians and fans for donations to buy bundles and pay for internet.
I have not been to any COVID-19 spotlight zone
I'm so afraid to die
And leave all the news behind
Let the other journalists with spine sweat it out in the hot seat.
I am the armchair journalist
Mocking journalists in jail, those murdered for speaking truth to power and asylees
Holding my large nose high in contempt
But I have thousands of likes and followers and I must feed my fans.
Don't you know 'image is everything'?
@authoromwaombara
COVID -19 TICKING
Tick tock tick tock
Multitude clocks chiming
Time's not waiting
Two million bells and still counting
American forest alert sounding
Cowards, Brave rangers trembling
Elephants fighting
Fires excreting
Grass stop singing
Displaced ants cringing
Sun's face hiding
Everything is -inging
Anthills shaking
Termites stinging
Elephants charging
Trumpets blowing
Giant feet thumping
Snakes coiling
A thousand fireflies dimming
What an -ing -ing -ing
Tortoise fleeing
Dust, blinding
Ostrich speeding
Eggs breaking
Monkeys swinging
Owls blinking
Sick bat bleeding
Ill wind swaying
Earth sinking
Helpless doctors watching
Mass graves loading
Masked undertakers smiling
Bottomless pit dining
Gluttonous womb breeding
Freed souls merging
Rich and poor uniting.
Cherubim and Seraphim bowing
Mystery doors closing
What an -ing -ing -ing
Till they find the vaccine
We'll soon be -ing -ing -inging
Still, let's not stop singing.
Ink pen flowing.
@authoromwaombara
SONG OF AN ASYLEE
Those ploughing along the borders
Scratching through the barren land
Soaking the soils with sweaty armpits
Absorbing the cloudless sun's rays
Have you seen the eagle?
The one with the powerful claws?
And swift wings?
He has stolen my young ones from the nest I built with tough twigs.
He picked my healthy chicks, locked them in cages.
He left behind the sickly ones.
To stray into detention camps.
Those digging the walls by the borders
Have you seen the noisy hawk.
Tell him my breasts hurt with milk
The babies hadn't weaned
And an alien virus lurks in the fields.
@authoromwaombara
AUTHOR OMWA OMBARA ,
The Editor in Chief at Tujipange Africa Media, a diaspora based Magazine in United States of America. A Consul at Large at poetasdelmundo.com /POETS OF THE WORLD .A motivational speaker. Writers Consultant with her amazing projects, Walks and Talks and Tips for Writers Show . An International investigative journalist, poet, vocalist, performing and visual artist. She is author of a Memoir, “God’s Child on The Run.” .Published in several anthologies including Our Secret Lives, Holding the Center and other journals of International acclaim. Omwa is a former Bureau Chief, The Standard Group and has published over 4000 articles in her journalism career spanning 20 years. Her passion for standing up to power and corrupt leaders in the media circles is unmatched. Her experience in journalism spans from more than two decades. She stands firm against the abuse of power, corruption and mass killings. she is an advocate of true journalism. She comes aboard with her vast understanding of global humanity issues, journalistic experiences and women rights knowledge. She holds a postgraduate diploma in journalism and mass communication and a BA degree from the University of Nairobi.
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